


the telling of beautiful untrue things

by Lacerta26



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Character Death, Death, Denial, Feelings, M/M, and
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 13:18:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20154241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacerta26/pseuds/Lacerta26
Summary: ‘I know what you are,’ he punctuates his accusation with a pointed finger jabbed into Aziraphale’s chest, ‘every time I need you, you are there, every time I find myself adrift you are there. Like divine intervention, like the hand of God.’-Aziraphale and Oscar share some truths near the end of Oscar's life.





	the telling of beautiful untrue things

**27 July 1897 - Berneval-le-Grand, northern France **

‘You’re a terribly bad liar, you know,’ says Oscar, tartan blanket wrapped around his knees, sinking into his deckchair, sinking into the sand, as they look out over the English Channel. 

Robbie has gone in search of more to drink, perhaps ill advisedly, as Aziraphale is already feeling quite worse for wear, like he might start crying or singing at any moment. With Oscar it’s always a risk. 

‘I can’t think of what you mean, dear boy,’ he's smiling in an attempt to be jovial but it comes out strangled; they’ve had this argument before.

Oscar laughs, coughs, spittle collecting on his bottom lip and Aziraphale longs to close his eyes, not to see. Their mortal lives are so fleeting, he hates to watch them go and feels selfish every single time he turns away. 

‘Just what I say,’ he scoffs, ‘calling me ‘dear boy’. Just look at me, I’ve not been a boy for  _ centuries _ now and I’m certainly not dear to anyone.’

Aziraphale opens his mouth to protest but Oscar waves a dismissive hand, primly pulls up the blanket like someone’s maiden aunt, ‘how long have we known each other?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, since, ah, 1886? When you first met Robbie?’

‘Yes,’ says Oscar obliquely, ‘Robbie, what a miracle he has been.’ 

‘I still don’t…’ Aziraphale has gone cold, despite the weak July sun, and longs to change the subject but Oscar is a bull in a china shop when he gets hold of an idea. 

‘We’ve know each other for eleven years and you have not aged a single day and look at me, utterly wretched, failing and addled.’

‘My dear, the tribulations you’ve had to face are bound to have had an effect! All is not lost…’

‘That is not what I mean!’ Oscar rounds on him furiously, twisting in his chair and swaying closer, face puce with irritation, his famous temper turned on Aziraphale at last. 

‘I know what you are,’ he punctuates his accusation with a pointed finger jabbed into Aziraphale’s chest, ‘every time I need you, you are there, every time I find myself adrift you are there. Like divine intervention, like the hand of God.’ 

‘You are so loved, Oscar, all of your friends are here for you; Robbie, Reggie, me,’ Aziraphale tries for placating but it rings hollow. How can the truth spoken by an Angel become a lie in the telling?

Oscar heaves in a breath, wipes his mouth with the back of a hand, and says quietly, almost inaudible over the sound of the sea, ‘I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse. I want you to be honest with me, Ezra. I shall be dead very soon…’

‘Don’t say that, is there not still hope? You have so much more to give. Robbie tells me you’re writing again?’

‘Hope. With you by my side perhaps I have hope, perhaps I can believe He has not forsaken me to my nature and to eternal damnation. But I cannot hope when my dearest friends are lying to me!’

‘I’m not lying to you,’ says Aziraphale, voice rising in frustration but weary with it. This is not the first time a human had come close to guessing his true nature; none of them have ever quite dared to voice their suspicions but Oscar has always been a very particular sort of man. 

‘Yes you are.’

Aziraphale is loathe to do what he must, to sever ties and push him away, even as he can feel the ebb of Oscar’s life winding down and the desperation to be right about this, to cling to what it might mean for a man so burdened by his own mortality.

He sits up and steels himself to it; voice harsh and firm, an avenging Angel, ‘a liar must recognise a liar, then Oscar, for I know you’ve been corresponding with Bosie and hope to hide it from Robbie and I. This is simply your own guilt burdening you and so you attempt to foist it upon me.’ 

Oscar looks crushed, small and fragile for an imposing man of six foot, but he doesn’t obfuscate or deny it, there is only fear and strangled hope in his eyes as he speaks the truth, in accusation, on behalf of them both, ‘he’s my one constant, my one true love, my saviour and my downfall. You know what that’s like don’t you, Angel.’ 

There can only be silence in the face of such barefaced reality. Aziraphale stares at the sea and feels Oscar’s gaze bore into him, daring him to be truly honest, to  _ someone,  _ for once in his long life. The crunch of feet on the pebbles behind them causes them to start, guilty settling into a manifestly affected pose of harmony.

‘I could only find a bottle of semi-decent Bordeaux,’ says Robbie ruefully, stilling awkwardly by the deckchairs, ‘I say chaps, is everything alright?’

‘It’s nothing Robbie, darling. No matter about the wine. Ezra was just leaving anyway. Called back to England on an urgent matter,’ says Oscar blithely, reaching for the wine bottle as if the movement can scrub away the tension from the air. 

‘I do hope everything’s alright’, says Robbie his handsome features drawn up with concern, his hand warm on Aziraphale’s shoulder. 

Oscar looks positively poisonous as he turns back to the sea, ‘nothing for us to concern ourselves with,’ and Aziraphale has no choice but to stand and offer his seat to Robbie, dismissed.

He’s about to make his leave when Oscar turns, features once more ebullient through the cavernous spectre of his own making and Aziraphale’s heart leaps with the promise of swift reconciliation; Oscar doesn’t have long enough for this relentless burning of bridges. 

‘I say you couldn’t lend me that twenty pounds you promised?’ 

Aziraphale has promised no such thing but a note manifests itself immediately in his pocket. As he hands it over their fingers brush, Oscar’s are dry and cold, salted by the sea.

‘Look after yourself, Oscar, please,’ he says but the look he’s graced with in parting is nothing but indifferent. 

**29 November, 1900 - Paris**

Aziraphale only just makes it to Paris, summoned by a hurriedly written note from Robbie; the beginning of a new century always brings with it work for idle hands from far less idle demons. 

The room, when Reggie lets him in, is stinking of the end of things and dark with oncoming grief. Oscar is propped up in the bed, grey and wretched, eyes half closed and flickering beneath his paper thin eyelids. Robbie sits stiffly upright in a chair by the door like he’s a commuter waiting for a train; all there is left to do is wait. Bosie isn’t here, conspicuous in his absence. There’ll be tensions at the funeral that even an Angel is powerless to influence but then Bosie always did have a flair for the dramatic - he and Oscar had that in common. 

Reggie touches Oscar’s hand, a reverent press of fingers, ‘Oscar? Oscar, Ezra’s here. He’s come to see you.’

‘Angel? My Angel?’ says Oscar, a breath clawed out of failing lungs.

‘Yes, my dear, I’m here,’ Aziraphale moves forward carefully, the air in the room heavy with anticipation of something passing.

‘Have you come for me? Is this my end?’ 

Aziraphale smiles through unshed tears and takes his hand, ‘don’t say such things, there’s life in you yet.’

Oscar laughs, a reedy strangled thing, ‘how am I to think of adequate last words for an audience of Angels? 

‘Just the one Angel, I’m afraid,’ says Aziraphale. Isn't knowledge a tricky thing? Something that once seemed so important to conceal is given away now as if it were nothing.

The look of utter self important satisfaction that spreads across Oscar’s face almost makes the last few years of estrangement meaningless. It also rather gives Aziraphale the urge to slap him. He sits by the bedside still holding Oscar’s hand as he drifts in and out of sleep.

‘Wasn’t I clever, to be the one to work it out?’ says Oscar, sometime around dawn.

‘Yes, my dear, simply marvellous.’

He doesn’t make a habit of attending deathbeds. Unaccounted for ethereal energy tends to interfere with the natural process of things so he slips out before the actual end, leaving Oscar with Robbie and Reggie; the men who remained steadfast through everything, who loved him without demand for anything in return. 

Crowley, waiting for Aziraphale on the street outside, doesn’t say a word, merely takes his hand and draws them both away; a constant, like the tides, like the inevitability of death; both profound and mundane; his downfall and his saviour. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I really liked the idea that Oscar was the only human to work out that Aziraphale is an Angel. Or at least the only one who dared to confront him about it. 
> 
> Title from The Decay of Lying (1889)
> 
> Quote from De Profundis (1897): 'I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.' 
> 
> Apologies to Oscar Wilde for having the audacity tbh. Sorry if there are any historical inaccuracies. 
> 
> Comments and kudos always a delight!


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